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Campaigning for a congressional seat is serious business; Congress is serious business. It behooves us, the people, to avoid sending irresponsible dummies to represent us in Congress if at all possible. For instance, knowing what we know now, perhaps more people would have refused to vote for former Rep. Chris Lee (R – Clarence/Disgraced).

But when someone runs for Congress – especially a seat made vacant due to sex scandal, you’d figure that the candidate would properly vet his campaign staff and weed out … well, weed out the male prostitutes.

Last week, ads began popping up on Craigslist and other free online classifieds like Backpage seeking campaign workers for a campaign starting March 10th. Prospective employees were asked to call “Jay” at a number with a 303 area code; Colorado. Here’s one from backpage that’s still cached in Google:

The ads, while cached, have since been quickly scrubbed by the person who posted them when people started connecting the dots. Here’s the Craigslist ad that appeared in the Buffalo section – again featuring Jay with a 303 area code:

Here’s how it looks today, with the same Palin profile image, but the same changed name as the MySpace profile, in what appears to be a clear effort to conceal.

So, what’s all this about male prostitution, you ask? Well, click to enlarge this wholly different ad that Lasher evidently took out last year through Backpage.com. Note the inventive transformation of that same 303 phone number. His email? “jay4massage”. He has strong hands that know how to be soft and the desire to make this an event you’ll never forget. I wonder if that’s the pitch he gave Jack Davis about collecting petition signatures?

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Lasher also apparently took out this ad in “CityVibe”, offering escort services and massage. Again, same phone number, same 303 area code, and the lanky, long-haired guy in the image closely resembles the profile image in Lasher’s MySpace profile:

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Stamina, drive, and “strong hands” that “know how to be gentle”.

The following ad that Lasher evidently took out is particularly unsafe for work and quite sexually explicit. Again, it features the name “Jay” as in “jay4massage” and the same 303 area coded number.

The first image shows the information; his phone number, his email address, and the special and stamina-y services he offers.

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Here’s the second part of the ad, which reveals his “strong hands”.

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Note especially the fascinating disclaimer:

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Lastly, three graphic ways of proving that the ad is “NOT an offer of prostitution!”

We’re not passing judgment on homosexuality or sensual massage or happy endings or whether prostitution should be legal. None of those philosophical issues matter. Jay Lasher is, as far as we’re concerned, free to pursue any employment he wants whether it’s being a male escort or getting petitions for the execrable Jack Davis. (Frankly, the former may be more morally correct than the latter).

What matters here is that xenophobic newly-minted tea partier, former Republican-turned-Democrat-turned-nutter Jack Davis has demonstrated such poor judgment and political self-awareness that he hired a guy off the street to run his petition effort who happens to have recently hired himself out as an erotic masseuse, claiming not to be a male prostitute, despite adding pictures of his erect penis to his “massage” ads. Literally anyone with a rank knowledge of how to use Google could have vetted Jay Lasher a bit better.

On Friday, WNYMedia editor Chris Smith emailed David DiPietro, (who is officially employed by the Jack Davis campaign) and asked him if he was aware that someone named Jay Lasher with a 303 area code telephone number was soliciting paid canvassers on behalf of the Davis campaign. DiPietro replied, “Jack does have an outside firm helping with petitions along with a number of volunteers. I do not know the ‘Jason’ you are talking about, but I am not directly involved in the petition part of the campaign. I will find out tommorrow (sic). It is too late tonight. The 303 number does sound familiar. I’ll let you know.”

Calls made to Lasher’s 303 number were, likewise, not answered or returned.

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After two days of waiting for that response, Smith again emailed DiPietro and campaign attorney Jim Ostrowski for comment on the specific matter of Lasher’s alleged masseuse-cum-escort side-job, we are still awaiting an official reply. This morning, in response to this active Craigslist ad enjoining people to call “Jay” at a 716 number about working in the campaign office, Smith called asking to speak with Jay, Jeremey, Jason, and any other “J” name he could think of, ending in “Lasher”. The woman who answered confirmed that the number was, in fact, the Davis campaign’s office, but that no one named “Jay” worked there, or had ever worked there. A follow-up call revealed an outgoing voice mail message featuring a male voice asking people who are calling about the “ad” to leave their information.

If this is how Davis goes about hiring campaign staff, whom exactly will he hire should he go to Congress? It’s about smarts and responsibility.

The voters of the 26th Congressional district have suffered through Jack Davis’ moneyed temper tantrums three times already, and each time has been an utter disaster. He’s alienated everyone who supported or helped him in those efforts, and has become a grumpy, reclusive, immigrant-hating Monty Burns who thinks he can buy himself a Congressional seat.

Just say no to Jack Davis, his petitions, their carriers, and his final quixotic exercise in self-aggrandizement.

Don’t let ’em scare you, Jack!!!! This kind of thing only adds to your appeal!! If the 26th District goopers flocked to vote for Paladino with all that was known about him, this should make them absolutely swollen with anticipation to vote for you!!! If only we could find some racist emails you sent and have you rail about government waste while gorging at the trough, you’d be a shoe-in!!!! My exclamation key is the working punctuation key!!!!

Seriously, is Jack Davis the worst political candidate ever? I mean, he didn’t send around horse porn, but this will be his fourth big embarrassing failure. Hiring these dopes to run his campaign isn’t helping.

The craigslist ads all say the job starts in 2001. Should that come into play at all in terms of the validity of the dot connection displayed here? I know my old college phone number must belong to someone else by now, too.

On one hand you claim to be a principled, non-judgmental person who wallows in acceptance. On the other hand, you criticize Davis for exhibiting those exact same qualities. At least be honest and admit that WNYmedia.sensationalism will resort to any position necessary in an attempt to discredit someone with different political views.

There is no logic in saying that voluntary associations are OK if you attack someone for not making discriminatory employment decisions based on those same voluntary associations.

In case clarification is necessary, my comments are not about Jack Davis, they are about the lack of integrity that can be found, at times, on WNYmedia.sensationalism.

In summary, Jack Davis is bad for hiring someone who does things that you don’t disapprove. Ok, got it.

Jack Davis hired a male prostitute to direct his petition-collection effort to take the congressional seat most recently populated by a pervert who trolled for dates on Craigslist. Jack Davis’ campaigns have, in the past, been rife with accusations of improper petition-gathering, and frankly, to set up a booth outside the district to collection petitions, as happened this past weekend, is just more of the same.

@Mike in WNY, Actually, I don’t think there is a conflict between our opinion of Mr. Lasher’s additional professional activities and our condemnation of Davis’s failure to vet them.

I would say that as a progressive media outlet, we understand that there are male escorts in the world and they offer their services for hire on sites like Craigslist and Backpage. Personally (not speaking for anyone else) I feel Mr. Lasher should be able to do what he does without threat of criminal prosecution. Legalize it, protect sex workers, test them for disease and tax their earnings. But, that’s me.

However, Mr. Davis is a conservative, family values candidate running as a tea party candidate in a conservative district for a seat recently vacated by a conservative, family values candidate who resigned due to shirtless trolling on Craigslist for passable trannies/cross dressers. It is certainly obvious to this intrepid blogger that Mr. Davis should properly vet his staff for things which violate the generally accepted standards of decency and legality in his district. Failure to do so demonstrates a fatal flaw in judgment.

@Mike; Jack Davis is a terrible candidate for not vetting people before giving them the authority to hire other staffers. Did you completely miss that part or did your kneejerk before you could stop it?

Mr. F.N. Magoo, it is you who missed my point. This hit-piece claims to condone the activities of Lasher. That being the case, it is illogical to claim that vetting should have weeded him out. I don’t buy the fallacious argument that what Lasher did is OK, but it is not Ok for Davis to hire Lasher because of the things he did.

@Mike in WNY: we all look forward to Jack Davis bravely standing by his choice! I look forward to him telling his tea party supporters he knew all about this guy’s past and feels there’s nothing wrong with legitamite sex work. He’s proud to have Jeremy, er, Jay, or whatever his name is on his staff. He’s done a fine job, and will continue to do so, because his past is neither shameful nor relevant.

@Mike; you continue to be deliberately obtuse. If you think that there is no legitimate criticism to be made of Davis for hiring a campaign staffer without doing basic due diligence, you’re just sticking your fingers in your ears and humming loudly. This is a colossal blunder whether its Jack or anyone else. By steadfastly ignoring that this is a huge fumble of the campaign’s kickoff, by ignoring how this will play amongst the conservative goopers in the 26th, by trying to insist that he shouldn’t have been vetted just because Alan doesn’t condemn his other activities is to determinedly blind yourself to what it means in the overall election dynamic.
In short, Mike, you’re being tooly.

We get to decide another political fortune based on the sex lives of the people involved in the process instead of the positions and policies held by the candidates.

I’m not about the rehash the same, tired “It’s relevant because it shows bad judgment!” argument you use to validate focusing on shit like this all the time. All I’m saying is the American political dialogue is completely devoid of any substance and stuff like this just isn’t doing anything to change that.

I feel bad for Lasher. The guy was whoring himself out on the internet before he got this job and now he’ll never be able to work for a campaign again. It’s a shame we demonize sex so much in this culture that he can’t put his past behind him and move on with his life.

*…and now I wait for the trolls who will accuse me of being a Jack Davis supporter….

@Jon; its always great when people try to dress criticisms of people’s poor judgment strictly as criticism of their sexual preferences or predilections. Red herrings stink no matter what. You’re trying to make criticism of Jack’s piss poor judgment into an attack on Lasher to deflect from Davis. Both he and Lee ultimately get a “FAIL” for cluelessness before all else.

My only concern is with a candidate’s actual positions on important issues. I am not interested in playing “6 degrees of Kevin Bacon” with political candidates. If we did that, it would be nearly impossible to find any candidate who is not “guilty” by association.

Your rave albums are goofy and harmless, just like raves. The larger point of this whole escapade being that if you want to advocate a certain worldview as a candidate, you should probably make sure your personal story and that of your affiliates matches that worldview. For instance, if Chris Lee wasn’t a family values candidate with a stated anti-gay rights agenda, I really wouldn’t give a shit that he was trolling around for trannies on his personal time. Really. It’s the hypocrisy, not the “crime” that’s the issue. (see: Gingrich, Newt, et al)

Since I assume you will be distancing yourself from this Jay or Jeremy or whoever he is, might I submit my name and resume for this vacant position of Volunteer Recruiter? I have vast experience in such matters as well as working within the Congress.

@Mike; “Guilt by association” is YOUR logic and its wrong. You refuse to countenance that Jack showed a huge deficit of the managerial skill he touts as one of his qualifications for office. If this guy chose to attend a Davis rally, voted for him, or even donated to him then this would be a non-story. But he was hired to hire others without the slightest due diligence on the part of Jack or whomever Jack delegated this task. The main gist of the critique is that its a colossal political blunder given the demographic of his district. You either don’t understand what your own link defines or you stubbornly choose to ignore the fact that this is more than merely Jack’s social associations. He hired someone (HIRED!!! not ‘associated with’) who’s background will, without question, damage Jack’s chances in the 26th. Policies are important but so is professional judgment.

@Chris- Like I said, I’m not getting into the judgment/hypocrisy aspect of all this again. I said my piece on all that when the original Chris Lee story broke.

I’m speaking in a much broader sense about sex and politics from all sides of the aisle.

Family values conservative types certainly do more to demonize sex and sex work than liberals do but liberals are just as eager to pile on a sex scandal and use the stigma to their advantage and the dialogue suffers for it. You can find all sorts of hypocrisy in any politician on nearly any issue but if it involves a dude’s dick or a set of tits, it’s suddenly exponentially worse.

Is a fiscally conservative congressmen earmarking pork barrel spending for his district going to generate the same outrage and blog traffic as a family values conservative fucking his secretary? They’re both being hypocritical in regards to how they present themselves as candidates but when sex is involved, we suddenly lose any sense of perspective and that’s what I’m trying to get at.

If politics was NHL 94′ on the Genesis, being able to attach sex to criticism is the wrap around goal you can score on every time. It’s a cheap way to score points and the overall political discourse suffers when we obsess to this degree about it.

How does Jane Corwin feel about the GE nuclear reactors that are toasting themselves as we type? Maybe Davis’ goof isn’t so monumental after all. Hydrofracking of nuclear, what does Hochul think? How about Ian Murray?

Jack Davis has a lot of money. That doesn’t mean he’s intelligent, or moral, or always displays judgement that is up to Mr. Bedenko’s —or anyone else’s standards.

Look at how the people who “display good judgement” that GOT elected are doing for us at Federal and State levels?

Reminds me of “Magnum Force” when Harry’s partner were talking about the motorcycle cops—they hung so tight in the academy that the other cadets thought “they were queer for each other”. Harry’s response? “If they could shoot like those guys, I wouldn’t care if the whole Department was queer!”

End of the day, sports fans, we need RESULTS from the Congress. We’re not getting it now. I’m not saying I’d ever vote for Jack Davis, as from all I’ve seen and read he appears to be a nutball. But how he spends/wastes his millions is purely his business. And just like Palin, if he can’t get elected—-and that looks like that’s the deal—-What the hell do y’all care so much about what he does?

@ Hank : “But how he spends/wastes his millions is purely his business. ” What a non sequitur. Nobody’s questioning his right to spend his money.
And using the movie Magnum Force to justify that you don’t care so long as you get results makes me think you didn’t even see the movie. The cops in question turned out to be psychopathic Fascists who were part of a conspiracy to mete out vigilante justice as determined by an elitist cabal. Even Harry Calahan couldn’t stomach that. I call “FAIL”

When you’re elected to Congress, you take an oath to uphold the laws of the land. Last I looked, prostitution is illegal in New York. It’s the difference between Bill Clinton (screwing around on his wife with consenting adults, none of our business) and Eliot Spitzer (screwing around on his wife with hookers which is illegal and a crime he aggressively prosecuted as AG adding hypocrisy to the mix.) One maybe lacks some morals, the other is a lawbreaker and unfit to serve.

Expecting a serious candidate to do five cents worth of homework on a potential political hire isn’t expecting too much. It tells a candidate’s level of acumen and intelligence. And if you make a mistake, admit it and move on.

I have had the pleasure of knowing Jack on a personal level since I was first transferred by GM to work at the Harrison, Lockport, Division in 1983. Because of this personal relationship, I know that Jack would be ceratin to continue where Chris Lee left off. That is, he would continue his daily advocacy on behalf of “Working Americans”. Jack’s contributions to Western New York in terms of Jobs created and benevolent projects are legendary. It would be very much in the “Best Interests” of all “Working Folks” to vote for Jack Davis to stand up for THEIR interests in Washington. I guarantee that no other Candidate will be as dedicated. Concerning this effort to harm Jack’s reputation. FORGET IT. Whomever has attempted to start this “Dirty Rumor” is of the most dispicable character. This is an obvious attempt to intentionally damage the reputation of one of the very finest citizens in Western NY and America. Jack is a TRUE AMERICAN PATRIOT and rises above the “Dirty Politics” that are palyed by the Partisan Parties.

Come ON Alan! IT’S A MOVIE TITLE, For Pete’s sake. Or did ya just guess I always have a magnum on me. Another reason not to live in present WNY. the word for Gun and the word for what it does, put together, sends liberal rushing for cover. See, down here you talk nice to everyone, because you don’t always know who’s packing a gun and what kind of mood they might be in. Liberals like to verbally attack people. Can’t do that here. One thing for sure===You’re an Original Liberal. @ Magoo—when I worked in a county jail and I heard inmates tell me “I didn’t do it this time!!!” I’d say—“How many times did you do this and not get arrested?” Usually they couldn’t count how many. I’d tell them, “Well, you’re in here for one of THOSE times then”. Might be a odd view, but justice served. Just heard about a guy in Charlotte who had 27 B&E’s and 26 Felony Larcenies not get charged as a habitual offender. Justice doesn’t work well. Got to live with that.

@kris: “I am not sure how outing this Lasher guy has any ill effect on Davis.” Allow me to enlighten you. It makes him look like his campaign is already in the ditch before it leaves the staging area. The story is about how Jack hasn’t even secured sufficient petition signatures before being shown to be oblivious of who’s staffing his campaign.

@ One Who Knows (not): hire Jon Splett FAST because if you’re going to include lines like this in your defense of Jack’s flying leap at a rolling rathole when it comes to spending his money on yet another election loss, you need help NOW!!! “I know that Jack would be ceratin to continue where Chris Lee left off. ” Chris left off at trolling for anything with a pulse.

@Mike; Learn another note. You keep trying to make this about something other than Jack’s failure to have a handle on his campaign and you’ve been turned back every F.N. time. But much like last time, Carl….I mean Jack will ignore advice from people he hires and just stumble about sputtering confusedly. But Jack paid all his people last time, at least.

Curious how WNYMedia put two and two together on this one. A google search on the data entry ad phone number wouldn’t have brought up the escort results since the phone digits were spelled out. Any WNYMedia writers been traveling through Arizona recently???

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[…] really the word, here, based on evidence ranging from his novel views on agricultural policy to his hiring practices (kind of NSFW, that last link). Davis is trying to run on his own line (’Tea Party,’ […]

[…] really the word, here, based on evidence ranging from his novel views on agricultural policy to his hiring practices (kind of NSFW, that last link). Davis is trying to run on his own line (’Tea Party,’ […]